Liberals offer no policies

In typical Liberal fashion, Ralph Goodale chooses to attack our Conservative government’s economic record and commitment to keeping taxes low in a letter to the editor (“Harper Tories are brilliant taxcutters — not,” Jan. 14) rather than advancing any economic policies of his own.

Here are the facts. Since coming into office in 2006, our Conservative government has repeatedly lowered taxes for hard-working Canadians, seniors and their families. In fact, we’ve done it over 160 times.

For Mr. Goodale to suggest that these tax cuts are not helping Canadians keep more of their hard earned money in their pockets is absurd.

Indeed, it’s because we’ve cut taxes in every way government collects them that all Canadians are benefiting — regardless of income level. For example, we cut the GST from seven per cent to five per cent, cut the lowest personal income tax rate, increased the amount Canadians can earn before paying tax, and more.

We’ve also introduced tax relief for families, like the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit, so that parents can save on the cost of enrolling their kids in organized sports, and the Universal Child Care Benefit, giving families more choices when it comes to child care.

We’ve also introduced tax relief for seniors, including pension income splitting, increasing the Age Credit and Pension Income Credit, as well as raising the RRSP-RRIF conversion age from 69 to 71. These tax reductions help Canadians keep more of their hard earned money in their pockets, allowing them — not the government — to decide how to best spend or save that money. In fact, Mr. Goodale might be interested to know that the tax cuts introduced by our Conservative government since 2006 have removed over 1 million Canadians from the tax rolls and have brought the federal tax burden to its lowest level in 50 years. Only the Liberals would call this tax reduction a tax hike.

So, why is Mr. Goodale trying to mislead Canadians when it comes to our Conservative government’s record of keeping taxes low? Perhaps it is because the Liberal party voted against each and every one of these measures.

When it comes to lowering taxes, our Conservative government has nothing to learn from the Liberal party.

That’s why, despite their opposition to lower taxes, we will continue to work hard to keep taxes low for hard-

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Ah, yes, the governing party that took multi-billion dollar surpluses and turned them into multi-billion dollar deficits in two short years. The governing party that paid a billion plus dollars for G8 security in TO - including a very nice gazebo in Haliburton (?) - and which can't seem to find a defence procurement program that it can't screw up to the tune of a few billions more. That, friends, is why I voted for this crowd once. Once only....